An appeaser is one who feeds a BHEAST, hoping it will eat him last.

LAND DEAL THAT SHOCKED A GOVERNMENT

In light of current events, this is in my humble opinion is a very, very interesting story.

From the Sunday Mail January 26 1997

THE £9 million LAND DEAL THAT SHOCKED A GOVERNMENT

Rangers’ new “Goldfinger” Joe Lewis and Celtic director Dermot Desmond were both named in a report into a huge property scandal in Ireland.

The controversy led to an official inquiry and rocked the Irish Government.

It involved the £9.4 million purchase in 1990 by the state-owned Telecom Eireann of a disused bakery in Dublin as the site for a huge new HQ.

The storm broke after it was revealed that Telecom had paid an inflated price for the site which was previously owned by a company called United Property Holdings.

UPH was led by Desmond and among its shareholders was his friend Mr Lewis, who was listed as having 2.5 per cent. Michael Smurfit, the chairman of Telecom, owned 10 per cent.

Government inspectors at one time froze Mr Lewis’s shareholding in the firm, along with those of the other shareholders. When their report was issued, Desmond – a close friend of the then Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey – was named as the main beneficiary of the controversial sale.

That’s a charge he has always denied.

The report of the inquiry, conducted by John Glackin, found that UPH had sold the bakery site to two offshore companies called Chestvale and Hoddle.

These firms passed it on to Telecom Eireann, and the total profit on the deals, concluded over 18 months, came to pounds 5.3 million, of which UPH made pounds 2.3 million. The ownership of Chestvale and Hoddle was never firmly established.

The Glackin Report said that it was Desmond, knowing that Telecom were looking for a site for a new HQ, who told Smurfit about the bakery site.

Glackin alleged that Desmond was the real power behind the companies in the bakery deals, and had been involved at almost every stage.

The report was scathing about Desmond’s involvement but cleared Smurfit, who had already resigned as Telecom chairman. It also probed the business affairs of some of Desmond’s closest friends.